UBB.Developers Forums Community Development Promoting Your Community Forum Showcase Newbie Love...

How are Newbies initially treated on your board?

Do they feel welcomed right away, or do some of the older members haze them until they lose their newbieness.

As an admin/mod what do you do?

On fast growing sites, it's easy to let the new members slipslide away... for those who do something a newbie would do (post off-topic, in the wrong forum, ask a newbie question), they usually get hammered unmercifully. We opened a forum here specifically for new members, giving them a place to ask questions that they feel comfortable in.

On a slower growing site (like my personal one), we bend over backwards if at all possible to let newbies feel welcome. Not always possible, especially for those who signup and never come back... that's the real place that needs work. A welcome pm that sends them an email with links to newbie-faqs would help a lot there... hmmmm....

We're a small board, newbie bashing used to be allowed but now it's a rule not to bash newbies. We have little rules, i like it better that way.

They are greeted pretty well on the forum I work on...

They are treated like everyone else. My member's are really cool and there's no hostility on my board, so I guess I'm lucky to not have that problem.

yea, your members come to my board to bash newbies.

We enforce the No Flaming, No Bashing, of anyone on the site. Opinions are welcome even if negative, as long as they are done tactfully. We have our occasional problem child, but it seems to be an effective policy to date.

I have one forum that is for a friend of mine in real life. She has her friends in there and they are a little rough sometimes but it's a vant for them. The rest of the board is strictly a no0bie safe zone. I don't tolerate bashing from or to anybody.

I very strictly enforce the "no newbie bashing" rule, and it's done its job. If I was a newbie, I think I'd feel welcome.

~Jon

On a few very popular boards I go to. (2000 Members +) there is alot of Newbie bashing if they spam etc and are never forgiven. Bad board for Bad newbies...

Well as a mod on our boards I can honestly say we totally welcome new users of any kinds (ditto the chatrooms, which I help run) providing they're not abusive, or cause trouble in some way

In fact we go out of our way to make new chatters feel welcome... speaking of which I like the idea Allen Ayres posted about e-mails with details and helpful FAQ's etc... that strikes me as something that would encouage new users to feel right at home... so i think I'm gonna take that idea on board and see if we can't do something with it, to help new chatters and board posters (I've always hated the word "newbie" by the way... something kinda patronizing about it...)

Chat to you soon! Tigerwolf http://stormchat.com